Why Apple removed the headphone port from the iPhone 7 | Hacker News Reader

Why Apple removed the headphone port from the iPhone 7

dhariri.com

3 pointsdavidhariri9 comments

Phil Schiller, Greg Joswiak and Dan Riccio explained the technical reasons that triggered the removal.

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/07/apple-explains-headphone...

But no, continue with the fucking conspiracy theories, just like how they removed the floppy drive to because Job's neighbour was a floppy disk magnate and had an annoying dog, and they removed optical drives because Jonny Ive wants CD's to become worthless so he can make abstract art from used CDs.

I know, it's "cool" to bag on Apple - first it was because they were the outsider, PC-using people would make fun of Mac users because we were different - we didn't just buy a PC like everyone else; then Apple released the iPhone and became a household name, and non-Apple users would make fun of Apple-users because we were buying the 'popular' option.

Sure, I can see that the headphone jack removal will inconvenience some people. I can also see the argument that USB-C might have led to less inconvenience. But that would then mean that no accessories from the last 4 years would work, and people would still complain.

I've seen people posting images of Apple's old iPod/iTunes ad artwork with the silhouette and white headphones, saying "remember when Apple's marketing was all about white headphones". Do these people seriously think the iPhone 7 has no ability to use wired headphones, whether Lightning or Analog?

Or is it just the same thing we always see. Find something vaguely controversial. Take a single aspect and hyper-focus on it, without context, and try to get your shit viral. I'm waiting for a less-tech-aware member of my family to say they don't want an iPhone 7 because they won't be able to use headphones with it.

Kind of odd that the article basically argues that the main reason Apple dropped the headphone port was to make more money at the expense of its users - and was dishonest by pretending it was to make the phone waterproof... but then the author still orders the iPhone 7.

Apple's blatant marketing bullshit really rubs me the wrong way.

Author here: I was actually trying to highlight that I think the reasons were three-fold: Future-picking, Capitalism and Space-efficiency. Sorry if that wasn't clear from my writing. Thanks for the comments and yes, Apple's marketing sometimes rubs me the wrong way too.

Fair enough! I was just surprised by the ending - I agree with most of what you wrote though, and I enjoyed reading the article.

I'm glad! Thanks!

Author forgot to list one of the theories running around: DRM enforcement. It is harder to control what plays through an analog plug in contrast with controlling DRM with the closed source driver that will control the wireless headphones (or the analog adapter).

Can you link to that? I hadn't heard that theory... Would the connector act as a filter for DRM content?

It's an EFF theory, which completely ignores the fact that Apple already controlled both the software and the DAC that enabled the headphone jack in previous models.

Apple has shown good faith on this - they successfully negotiated with/convinced the record labels to allow them to sell DRM-free music via iTunes.

The idea is that something similar could happen as happened with video: With digital connections replacing analogue ones, the interfaces could require downstream devices to implement DRM protocols (HDCP in the video case), limiting high-quality signals to licensed output devices.

But for video, the benefits of digital transmission were way greater, and extracting signals from a output device is way easier with audio. Grabbing decrypted video from a TV screen's internals is really difficult, analogue audio from the cable between a audio DAC chip and a speaker is easy.

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